Month: June 2011

Voices From the Farm: A Strange Winter for Minnesota – No Snow!

By February 28, there was still no snow on the ground. We’d had only only a few light skiffs of snow thus far in the winter, the ground was bare almost all of the time. We had never had our driveway plowed! By this time the previous year, we had been plowed out a total of nine times! It may have been a relief not having to battle the snow all winter, but according to my journals of that year, we were quite depressed with all the monotony…

Food Front Co-op: Different Is Good

Large conventional retailers replicate stores across the landscape and are not so careful about reflecting local community demographics and product preferences. Natural food co-ops, because they are member-owned, take on the personalities of their surrounding neighborhoods. Food Front Co-op in Portland OR shows how different is good.

The Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook by Richard Wiswall

Contrary to popular belief, a good living can be made on an organic farm. What’s required is farming smarter, not harder. In The Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook, Richard Wiswall shares advice on how to make your vegetable production more efficient, better manage your employees and finances, and turn a profit.

Somali Bantu Farmers Put Their Skills to Work in Washington

Starting over can mean different things to different people, depending on the nature of the change. It often entails a journey: physical, emotional or both. For a group of Somali Bantu refugees who have settled in the South King County part of Washington, it has been nothing less than an odyssey.

Ensuring Your Urban Chickens and Their Eggs Are Safe

As urban homesteading becomes increasingly popular, more people are refraining from store-bought eggs to try their hand at raising backyard chickens. However, despite the many potential benefits, it’s still necessary to take precautions against disease and pathogens like Salmonella.

Voices From the Farm: Survival and Readjustment

Once again, we ride out the storm, it’s a rough ride, but I stay in the saddle, the sheep stay on the farm, and all is not lost! The rams, however, are locked in the ram pen in the lower barn, pending their sale within a month or so.

Thoughts About How We Eat

We no longer know why we eat the way we eat — our eating habits have grown entirely eclectic. We’re as often as not focused on novelty, whimsy — a reflection of our personal identities, all clowns in a gigantic world trade circus. All our cultural connections to food are being lost — as are our natural connections to each other and the earth.